Examining the New Latin America

EXAMINING THE NEW. LATIN AMERICA Riordan Roett T,he field of Latin American Studies has undergone a dramatic shift in the last three decades. The study of Latin America and the Caribbean, with the exception of traditional diplomatic and historical studies in the immediate postwar period, changed dramatically with the advent of the regime of Fidel Castro in Cuba in 1959. Great amounts of money from private foundations andthe publicsectorwere suddenly availablefor training a new generation ofarea specialists. Fluency in language received high priority, as was travel andresidence inthe region. Social scienceparadigms were added to the more traditional historical approaches to analyzing change in the Western Hemisphere. For a briefperiod in the 1960s, a new generation of "Latin Americanists " graduated from leading institutions in the United States. The new generation immediately confronteda series ofcritical policy andtheoretical issues that have marked the evolution of Latin American and Caribbean Studies for the last three decades. The first was the emergence in the mid1960s of a new kind of military dictatorship: the infamous BureaucraticAuthoritarian Regimes of South America. Fifteen years later, as a transition back to civilian government began, a second policy issue appeared: the decision by Latin American governments to abandon the post-1945 economic model of Import Substitution Development (ISD and embrace a market-driven model of liberalization, deregulation, and privatization. Riordan Roett is Sarita and Don Johnston Professor and Director of The Latin American Studies Program at SAIS. 41 42 SAIS REVIEW For many observers the efficacy of the new economic model fell into jeopardy with the "lost decade" ofdebt in the region—the third important development. Followingthe oil price shock in 1973, LatinAmericangovernmentsborrowed heavily to avoid adjustment and to maintain theirpolitical legitimacy. Many borrowers were military regimes with little else to claim but economic performance. But by the early 1990s, the debt issue, while still significant, became far less prominent. Finally, in the early 1990s, as analysts reviewed the last three decades of development in the hemisphere, a fourth policy area has risen on the research agenda. It emphasizes social equity, participation, competitiveness , and investment strategies stressing people and skill. It offers the compelling argument that the region will repeat, in some variety, the same dreary saga ofbreakdown and non-democratic governance unless it gives individual citizens a greater stake in society. Like the three issues mentioned above, the human argument is incomplete in that the danger of breakdown is not necessarily irreversible. But the four themes are important to note, because they delineate the progression of professional and academic interest in Latin America and the Caribbean since the early 1960s and the heyday of the Revolution in Cuba. Regime Changes The 1950s in Latin America were years ofpolitical and economic populism . Relatively weak civilian governments ran up large budget deficits to satisfy the rapid growth of a new urban proletariat's consumption expédions . The proletariat evolved from a rapid movement from countryside to city in most countries after 1945. The emergence of Import Substitution Industrialization (ISD models ofdevelopment in the region created factory jobs. Urban workers were more readily available for mobilization by competing political parties, labor unions, professional associations and similar organizations. Governments were hard-pressed to implement programs of fiscal austerity with mounting pressure for morejobs, better education and housing, and social security. For most regimes, it was easiest to print money, to run an overvalued exchange rate, and to borrow. As a result ofa decline in investment, infrastructure , and technology, exports began to fall, further increasing the current account deficit. Widespread social unrest, often combined with the putative threat ofleftist agitation or subversion, led to a series ofmilitary takeovers which began in Brazil in 1964. Argentina, Uruguay, Peru, Bolivia, Ecuador, and Chile followed. On the continent, only Colombia and Venezuela escaped (Paraguay had a military government since the early 1950s). The new regimes were not a repetition of the in-and-out military dictatorships of the 1950s, because many officers in the regimes were EXAMINING THE NEW LATIN AMERICA 43 trained in economics and planning. In some countries, war colleges had offered a common program of study to both military officers and civilian technocrats, who shared a vision of an authoritarian political shield to...